Though Arrow has played host to a wealth of characters taken from the comics such as Black Canary, Arsenal, Mr. Terrific, the Atom and the Emerald Archer himself, it’s also injected new personalities into the mythos throughout its run. In fact, this is a familiar practice for TV shows in the genre, lest we forget that Chloe Sullivan and Lionel Luthor were unknown quantities before Smallville came around.
Before the series debuted in 2012, one could imagine Oliver Queen existing without the likes of John Diggle or Felicity Smoak orbiting him, but now it just seems downright impossible to do so. Given that, lead actor Stephen Amell hopes these additions to the enduring tale stick around long after he’s hung up his leather hood, saying the following in an interview with The Music Australia:
“One of the things that I’m most proud about is that, 25 years from now, if they made a Green Arrow film, they would have to make it with John Diggle and Felicity Smoak and Thea Queen and Sara Lance and a lot of the characters that we’ve brought in and have created as we’ve gone along. I hope that not only do those characters start to exist in the comic books if they haven’t already – and some of them have – but I would hope that if you were looking at the blueprint of how to do a successful Arrow show, people would be like, ‘Yeah, you have to have those characters – those characters are a part of it now.’ And the fact that we created a bunch of them, or at least reconstituted some of them in some instances, that’s the most impactful thing that we’ve done.”
As luck would have it, John Diggle and Felicity Smoak were written into Green Arrow comics beginning with the New 52, even if the latter had originally existed as an obscure Firestorm character back in the ’80s. When it comes to Thea, she was TV’s new spin on Mia Dearden, but I guess anything’s possible. Sara Lance, meanwhile, has yet to make the jump to the printed page.
Like we said earlier, it’s not uncommon for TV shows to shift the paradigm. Don’t forget, Adam West’s Batman restored the likes of the Riddler to prominence, changed a certain villain’s name from “Mr. Zero” to “Mr. Freeze,” and introduced the Barbara Gordon version of Batgirl. When you think about it, the Arrowverse has done the same in certain respects.
Arrow returns for its seventh season on Monday nights this fall on The CW.
